However, the two years will be spent ensuring the club are better equipped for the regime change after fans’ protests against the 67-year-old spelled out the probability that this contract may be his last.

Ultimately, with the Kroenke owning two-thirds of the club it was left to him to pick through the results of last season – winning the FA Cup but finishing fifth – and decide that the Frenchman was still for now the man to try to take the club forward.

In return, Wenger has had to accept some restructuring of behind-the-scenes responsibilities, although he won his battle to remain in sole control of all technical matters pertaining to the football side of things.

The strategy to fight to keep Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez at the club was also thrashed out at the board meeting, with the club ready to go as high as £300,000-a-week for each.

However, the board have steeled themselves for a summer of widespread changes in playing personnel as Wenger looks to continue the process of “reinvention” he demonstrated towards the end of the season.

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Arsene Wenger must battle to keep hold of Alexis Sanchez

The contract says two years but the reality is that Arsene Wenger has really only got two months.

In that time, he must help reorganise the behind-the-scenes structure of the club, persuade his key squad members to remain, strengthen around them and in that way win over the fans.

Arsene Wenger was the centre of attention during the wild Arsenal celebrations

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Arsenal celebrate winning the FA Cup against Chelsea

Replacing such an established manager is fraught with problems, so all the time Wenger was ticking along in the top four, why take the risk? But there was a new attitude in the boardroom yesterday. The fans who wanted Wenger out may have had their wishes ignored but not, entirely, their voices.

The anger behind the protests was driven by a perceived lack of ambition – a manager, backed by a board, all too easily content.

This time, though, it was spelled out to Wenger that the club’s ambitions, very firmly, are to win the league. They may not have the spending power of Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United, but now, at last, that is the foremost target. They are going to have a go.

The improved contribution from Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil is enough to persuade the board to go as high as £30m-a-year for the pair. They are, after all, world class assets and not ones that can be afford to leave for nothing 12 months down the line.

Moreover, they fit perfectly into the 3-4-3 system Wenger finally adopted six months after Antonio Conte and Mauricio Pochettino were busy showing how effective it can be in the Premier League.

But they need somebody in between. Specifically, somebody capable of scoring 20 goals a season. For the last eight years, everybody who has won the league, has had one.

They are expensive, mind, but that is why finally getting that central talisman is such a measure of Arsenal’s real determination to compete. Get it right, and all the other transfer business of the summer falls into place behind it. In the past, though, Arsenal have tried to buy such a key piece of the jigsaw on the cheap.

In 2013, as Arsenal looked to find somebody to fill the 30-goal gap left by Van Persie’s departure, Wenger dithered over paying £23m for Gonzalo Higuain. He ended up paying just £10m for Olivier Giroud. The most he has ever managed is 16 in a season. The board have made it clear they no longer want second best. That is how you end up with Lucas Perez and not Alexandre Lacazette.

Wenger is a determined man. His demeanour in the tunnel after the FA Cup final was a timely reminder of that as he prepared for his meeting this week. He truly believes he is one of the world’s top managers, and on a one-to-one basis perhaps he is.

But now he has to show the same boldness in the transfer market he showed until shortly after Thierry Henry, Nicolas Anelka and all those other revolutionary new signings of the previous century.

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Robin Van Persie was the last striker that Arsenal have had who has been good enough to win a title

Overarching that, the word coming out of the Emirates yesterday was “evolution”, not “revolution”. Eventually, that will make easing Wenger out of the door easier than it ever looked like being this time around.

But with evolution, you still need major, landmark changes that show a process is moving in the right direction.

Recruiting a world class striker is one of those. It would pander to fans and bring greater positivity behind a more aggressive-thinking Wenger ahead of next season’s Premier League assault.

In “evolutionary” terms, a marquee signing is what Wenger needs to give his next two years some legs.